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Photo: Hendrik Schmidt / dpa
Free corona tests for everyone are a thing of the past.
In the future, only risk groups and other exceptional cases may be tested free of charge.
For tests, for example for family celebrations, concerts or meetings with people over 60, an additional payment of three euros is due.
Anyone who wants such a test must sign that it is being done for this purpose.
The Associations of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians are on a confrontational course with Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach because of the new regulations.
In a letter to the SPD politician, the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians and the state associations said that they "can no longer bill and pay out citizen tests in the future." Checking the claim is too difficult.
The editorial network Germany (RND) first reported on the letter.
It has already been shown in the past that the audit of accounts provided for by the Ministry and carried out by the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians was not able to prevent cases of fraud, according to the letter.
According to the new regulations, detailed eligibility requirements would now also have to be proven.
This examination is certainly not possible for the associations of statutory health insurance physicians.
"Based on past experience, we cannot be confident that all test sites will perform correctly," the letter said.
It cannot be assumed that only people who also meet the eligibility requirements under the new regulation will actually be tested.
In addition, one cannot assume that the test centers will provide everyone with sufficient information about the new eligibility requirements and check all the necessary evidence and self-declarations.
“As a result, the Associations of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians cannot be held responsible for making clear payments on bills whose correctness they cannot begin to verify,” the associations write to Lauterbach.
The Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians criticized the fact that they only had 4 hours and 15 minutes to comment on the new regulations before the new test regulation was published.
There were no reactions from the ministry.
At the request of the dpa news agency, the Federal Ministry of Health explained that it is assumed that the Associations of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KV) as public bodies will continue to fulfill their mandate for billing and random testing of the test centers.
"In a dialogue, we will discuss with the KVs at short notice how the new rules can be implemented in an unbureaucratic manner," said a spokesman.
Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach and Minister of Finance Christian Lindner had agreed last week to significantly restrict the "citizen tests".
They have been around since spring 2021 - with a brief interruption last autumn. According to Lauterbach, spending on them was recently around one billion euros per month.
“Not everything can be paid for by the federal government in the long term because our possibilities have reached their limits,” Lindner justified the new regulations.
svs/dpa
